A late-night shooting near Leverett Towers on Saturday left no one injured and the police seeking a known suspect in an incident that sent rumors flying across campus and spooked neighbors of the alleged gunman.
Thirty minutes earlier, an unrelated shooting about 10 blocks east of campus resulted in two arrests but no injuries.
In the shooting near Leverett, a black man wearing a gray jacket or shirt fired a round of shots at 10:30 p.m. on Athens Street—which runs parallel to DeWolfe Street and Banks Street by Leverett Towers—said Frank T. Pasquarello, spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department (CPD).
Pasquarello said officers responded to 27 Athens St. and interviewed a woman, thought to be the intended target of the gunshots, who had been visiting a friend on that block. Officers reported that the woman had been talking to a friend of the suspect when the suspect allegedly became belligerent.
“The suspect started kicking [her] car,” Pasquarello said, adding that the suspect and the victim knew each other beforehand. “He then went upstairs, returned with a firearm and allegedly shot at the female as she was driving up the street.”
According to Pasquarello, the suspect, who is unaffiliated with Harvard, and the woman both live on Athens Street near where the shooting occurred.
A CPD officer on the scene, who deferred official comment to Pasquarello, told The Crimson Saturday night that he believed the suspect was intoxicated at the time of the shooting, but Pasquarello could not confirm that fact.
However, Pasquarello said that the suspect’s arrest is pending a warrant that CPD believes Cambridge District Court will grant them this morning.
“We know who the suspect is,” he said, “but we can’t release the name until we get the warrant [for his arrest].”
An Athens Street resident, who just moved to the area on Sept. 15, said last night that she heard and witnessed the chain of events from her window.
The neighbor, who asked that her name not be used because the gunman is still at large and thought to be living on her street, said she initially assumed the exchange she overheard between a female and a male talking outside was harmless.
“At first I thought they were students who were drunk, but the argument got worse,” she said. The man, whom she said appeared to be intoxicated, kept repeating the phrases, “Who are you calling drunk? Who’s been drunk? Nobody here is drunk. Who are you saying is drunk?” according to the neighbor.
She said the female’s mother then intervened.
“I knew something was wrong when the woman said to get away from her daughter,” the neighbor said.
The neighbor said she then looked out the window and witnessed two men “struggling with each other.” She said she was not sure how the second man became involved in the argument, but he appeared to be defending the woman.
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